This week, Congress passed a short-term measure to fund government programs, including the NIH, until Dec. 22.  President Trump is expected to sign the short-term funding bill.

This short-term measure buys Congress more time to negotiate an overall budget deal for the next two fiscal years. One of the issues confounding Congressional leaders is the Republican’s desire to increase defense spending by $54 billion dollars.  Democrats currently will only accept the increase in defense spending if it is accompanied by an equal increase in non-defense spending – which includes programs like NIH and CDC.   

There are a number of other important measures that Congress must finalize before the end of the year. These include funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), funding for community health centers and consideration of tax reform legislation, which likely will include repeal of the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) individual health insurance mandate. The CHIP money restoration is particularly critical as many states will run out of funding for their CHIP programs within the next few months if Congress does not restore it.  Senate Republicans also intend to pass legislation that will help stabilize the individual health insurance market by to restoring ACA’s cost-sharing reduction payments to insurers, which the Trump administration ended in October. However, House Speaker Ryan and Conservative House members signaled this week that they will not support this bill. Meanwhile, Democrats are pushing for passage of legislation to address young immigrant “Dreamers,” which House Conservatives also oppose. These last two issues are significant sticking points to the resolution of all of these measures before the end of the year. We expect that Congress will remain in Washington until close to the holiday season.